BRAUM
by Achromancy
Summary: An idea for s short story I had in mind, a Super Mutant with a soul per-say.


I don't remember being human much, but I do remember my name. I try not to think much about who I was before I became this... thing. I try to keep the last little bits of my humanity as close as I can.

I don't eat humans, or much meat at all. I try to keep a hidden food supply of what settlers usually eat. Not like _Them_. They enjoy the spoils of an attack like birds of prey. The chunks of red flesh are pulled and chewed without any regard for where the scraps fall. It's like a shower of solid blood hitting the floor in patters. _They_ don't remember being human. It makes me sick, the crunching, the laughter, the _noise_ they make. One of them catches me staring, but only continues his feast. They don't pay me much mind, I stay out of the way, I don't speak. It works for them, they think 'humans' talk too much so they don't do much of it at all.

I taught myself how to read again, now I do it daily. I always have a book on me, I catch a few pages during a scouting run, usually at night before I sleep. _They_ don't sleep much either, the blood-rage keeps them awake, they crave the fight, the flesh. I calm myself before I decide to sleep, I meditate, I breathe. It lulls me to sleep and I dream.

There was a group of raiders that attacked what I would call our 'base camp', apparently we were in a destroyed building full of skeletons and gore bags that they wanted. In any case, they didn't last long and our Brute leaders wanted to know where they came from. With a handful of words and grunts, they send me and another two scouts, not any I'm familiar with.

We trace them back to an apartment building, it had maybe three or four more raiders in it that we found. Two of them were dragged away screaming the last was thrown in a body bag and dragged. I stayed behind to look around for some provisions and maybe new reading material. That and I wasn't too keen on hearing the raiders scream and beg for their lives the entire way back. I would make my way back to the base camp on my own, it's not like I had plans to go anywhere else. To be honest, I could go anywhere I wanted, but nowhere that would be friendly towards someone like me. I figured I'd better stick close to my... _people_.

I find a couple of magazines and a novel that didn't get burned too badly. The raiders were using the novel as a beer coaster, they didn't really seem like the reading types anyways.

The area I find the most supplies in is a single bedroom apartment with the wall torn open to its neighbour, it looked like they used one of the kitchens to cook chems in. _Chems_. What a waste of resources. I fill my satchel with a few containers of the prewar food that has absolutely no expiration date, it does the trick. I'd rather swallow this junk than whatever lumps those raiders are going to turn into.

My ears perk when something falls on the other side of the far wall, behind one of the bedroom doors. A raider that managed to hide away most likely, or a giant rad roach. Gross things, but not hard to get rid of. It was always a little humorous to watch _Them_ yell and stomp the bugs into paste, _They_ really hate the roaches.

I walk over to the other side of the room, my footfalls are loud enough that whatever was behind that door would know that something big knew where it was. I try to be slow, take my time, I wanted to open that door and see nothing so I wouldn't have to kill a person that was either too smart or too afraid to attack.

My hand is large on the knob, everything is smaller now. I turn it slowly and the door creaks open into a blackened room. Light streams in through cracks in the walls. I make out the layout of a simple bedroom, it takes me a moment to register the body on the bed, to realise I had not heard the floor creak, but the mattress.

A small body for that matter, a young girl. She stares up at me with wide eyes, a young face filled with shock. I've seen that face before, people that have died at the hands of _Them_. It's clear that this girl believes that she's either going to die or be eaten, or both in the worst order, I've seen it happen.

I walk into the room, after standing in the doorway for long minutes. She curls up into an even smaller ball and presses her back into the wall. I walk straight to the end of the bed and kneel on one leg. I can see her better now, she can't be more than sixteen. Dishevelled with only a ratty blanket wrapped around her, held by small hands with red robe burns around her wrists, long dark hair spilling over her cheeks like dirty grass.

I don't remember being human, but I do remember what these kind of men were capable of. Who knows how long she's been like this.

There isn't any immediate fear in her eyes any longer now that I'm sitting at eye level. She only waits to see what I decide to do. I decide to hold out my hand to her and speak, for the first time in a long time.

"My name is Braum," My voice feels hard on my throat, like a chisel on stone. I try to say the words as softly as I can, it still feels sharp against the collective silence.

I don't touch her, not with what she's been through. I give her the choice, I let her decide.

Her hand, small and shaky, reaches out to touch mine. It's cold, a honey brown against my thick off-green skin.

"Alyna," Her voice is almost too small to hear, too afraid, too broken, but it's there.

I don't know why she chose to trust me, maybe she's been through so much that the small amount of human kindness that I displayed was enough for her, or if she was just too scared to see what I would do if she didn't.

What I do know is that I couldn't leave her there, and I couldn't bring her back to the camp. She wouldn't survive there, not for long. If any part of me was still human, I needed to help her.

I carried her from that place to somewhere else, anywhere else. A shack on the coast that had been previously occupied by a lot of dust and roaches. It was quiet for a long time, I tried to make the shack livable, Alyna didn't say much, but she watched me work.

I cut a window in the wood wall so that she could watch the ocean. It took a few days, but she started to eat and drink. I set myself up outside around the corner where the shack roof overstretched and I always knocked before I entered the shack to give her food.

It wasn't until one night I was chapters deep into a novel. One or more before I began my meditation to sleep, then the shack door opened. I looked up from the campfire-lit page, edges crisp and delicate, to see a large pair of eyes peering around the side of the shack.

"You don't have to sleep outside," Her voice is small against the roaring flame.

I know that I do, at least for now. I want her to know that I will not approach her unless she wishes it, I am simply respecting her boundaries.

She shifts on spot a little bit and walks out from behind the shack, towards where I've set up a campfire and bedding, "What're you reading?"

I hold up the book for her to see, before closing and tossing it on the bedding to my side. Its progress that she's decided to approach me on her own, though now I'm not sure what to do, I've been around others like me for a long time, they don't like to interact unless they're killing something.

"You said your name is 'Braum'?"

I give a light nod. She stands in place for a moment before joining me next to the fire.

It's been almost seven years, I don't know how things like me are supposed to age, if we do at all, but Alyna is a woman now. She speaks with the kind of voice that can be heard, so different than the young delicate girl I met what seems like so long ago.

I feels like I've woken up from a long sleep, this girl whom I've protected and taught was now a creature worthy of respect and fear from those around her. What humanity I've thought lost through years and years of living with _Them_ I've rediscovered through her. One day I looked at her, bright and beautiful, and something _changed_.

I've never been her father, I've only been her protector. I was there to comfort her when she needed it most, I was there to feed her when she was hungry, to cup her trembling body to my own when she had woken from a nightmare crying.

I've held her hands steady when she wanted to fire my rifle, I've listened to her voice as she's read stories from book aloud.

I saw her honey brown skin cascaded in sun, her moss colored eyes highlighted by yellow, pieces of her long dark hair falling from the fabric wrap around her head and shoulders. I knew then that my humanity, the parts that I had lost so long ago, had been restored.

She looks down from a second story balcony and calls out to me, "Braum!"

I stand just below, a rifle in one hand, surrounded by the raiders we'd just survived. I'm alright, barely a scratch on me, but her face is still lined with concern. I extend my hand to her, her choice, her decision. Always.

A bright smile lines her face and she hauls herself over the edge, falling towards me. There is no moment in her choice that she doubts I will catch her. There is no moment in watching her fall that I doubt I will.

"You think a lot."

Alyna sits on a rock just inches from the Cliffside overlooking the ocean shore. A bright pink and orange sunset is just beginning to drop. I stand next to her with my arms crossed over my chest. She's right, but it's only because I am not one of _Them_. I'm not one of _Her_ either, I'm just something in between, something completely my own.

"You know, if you need to, you can always talk to me, right?" She looks over from her hands, which have been occupied by a small plant.

I look over to her, and I try to do so sincerely. I know I can talk to her, I just can't stand the sound of my own voice. The sound grates on my ears, I sound like one of _Them_. I hate how much it reminds me of the moments when I desperately tried to cling to the last little bits of my humanity.

I just hope she understands how much I wish I could talk to her without reliving those moments. In a way we have both been scarred. We have reasons for doing what we do. We respect how we do them.

I hold a hand out to her, her choice, her decision. Always.

She reaches out and takes my hand, always colder than my own, always smaller. She encloses her hand around the end of my palm and I close my large fingers around hers.

I am not human, but I am not one of _Them_. It is good enough for me.


End file.
